Modern headset communication devices are increasingly expected to work well in significant levels of ambient noise. This typically includes both temporally and spatially non-stationary noise sources, such as moving traffic and office babble. This presents a major challenge to the signal processing system, specifically Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and Noise Reduction (NR) systems, and their underlying algorithms.
The task of removing unwanted noise from the desired signal (the desired signal being the user's speech) is referred to as Noise Reduction (NR). The efficacy of any NR algorithm is dependent on its ability to isolate the desired speech signal from the unwanted environmental noise. As such, the system's ability to accurately model or estimate the noise component being removed is crucial.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application.
Throughout this specification the word “comprise”, or variations such as “comprises” or “comprising”, will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
In this specification, a statement that an element may be “at least one of” a list of options is to be understood that the element may be any one of the listed options, or may be any combination of two or more of the listed options.